Strategy analysis business goals diagram to help with your business year in review.

Your Business Year In Review – Preparing for the New Year

by BlogEdmiston Group
Strategy Analysis Business Goals Diagram to help with your business year in review.

Running a small business involves keeping track of a lot. With the 2022 year-end fast approaching, now is a good time for small business owners to review strategies and marketing campaigns, along with a review as to which products and services worked and didn’t work.

Taking the time to review your business results will help to ensure you are off and running in the New Year with a solid strategy based on prior performance. Here are three areas of your business to review to assess how your performance stacked up to your goals.

Goals Versus Results

Your business goals are important and drive the overall operations of your business. List your top 3-5 goals for the year along with your current progress towards those goals. If your company is not meeting those goals, identify one or more reasons for each goal as to why there is a gap. What adjustments can you make for the new year? How might you approach each goal differently?

Revenue

Is your business generating the income you had expected through your products or services? If not, first establish why you are not meeting the income you were expecting. Take a look at your pricing strategy. Is your product or service priced higher or lower than other similar products on the market? Are your products and services relevant, or do they need to be updated? Are you in the market you want to serve and attracting the right customers and clients? Once you identify the causes behind the gap, what can you do differently going forward?

Client Base

Your clients are important. They drive your revenue and quite frankly, without them, your business cannot survive. If your year-end review does not show an uptick in customers, study your client’s profiles and adjust your marketing strategies to cater to their needs. “Building a good customer experience does not happen by accident. It happens by design.” – Clare Muscutt.

A good marketing strategy will play a big role in filling the gaps exposed by your year-end review. If conducting a strategic annual review on your own seems like an overwhelming task, please feel free to email me. I would love to help.

Lastly, remember that solid reviews can help uncover shortcomings to help get you back on track and to ensure both the well-being and profitability of your company. It can also help create a more effective Marketing Strategy for 2023. In next month’s newsletter, look for our newest blog with the key elements to include when you are preparing and strategizing for your 2023 Marketing Plan.

About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh-based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.

Happy-businesswoman-relaxing-with-hands-behind-head-at-office-desk

Rejuvenating Your Business For The 4th Quarter

by BlogCommunicationsEdmiston Group
Happy-businesswoman-relaxing-with-hands-behind-head-at-office-desk

You just got back from the family summer vacation, the kids are back to school and you should be relaxed and ready to dive back into your work! But what if you are not?

As small business owners, you have many responsibilities including attracting and retaining clients, hiring and managing employees, and so much more… and that can be a bit overwhelming. It can be easy for small business owners to lose their creativity and vision which can affect their business’s growth and profitability. Working harder is not always the answer. That’s why rejuvenating yourself will help you recharge your business. Here are three tips to help you do just that!

1. Find Inspiration from a Community.

Running a small business often involves long hours and can increase feelings of loneliness and burnout. Your family may not fully understand your work situation and therefore cannot always give you the input you are looking for. Socializing face-to-face with other entrepreneurs and professionals always motivates me, especially when energy and enthusiasm are truly contagious. By finding a community of like-minded people, you can get the support and compassion you need, fueling what you need most: Inspiration.

2. Serve Others.

As a small business owner, you likely started your business because you were passionate about an idea, product or service. In other words, you wanted to serve people in some way. But how can you serve them outside of your business? You can make contributions such as donating to a homeless shelter or volunteer your time at a community event. These acts of kindness will give you a sense of meaning, fill you with a sense of pride, and create a positive energy. Helping others is a crucial quality if you want to be a successful entrepreneur.

3. Remind Yourself of the Positives.

Small business owners have many perks. Make a list of some of the perks you love most. Your list might look something like: greater control of my schedule, the ability to select the people and clients you work with, and limitless opportunities for professional development. By choosing to look at your business as a positive, the negatives seem less important.

Remember, recharging your business does not need to be complicated. By focusing and rejuvenating yourself, you are the key to unlocking your business success in the 4th quarter and beyond.

About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh-based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.

effective-email-newsletter

5 Tips for a More Effective Email Newsletter

by BlogEdmiston Group
effective-email-newsletter

Email newsletters can be used for various purposes and delivered in many different forms. They are a very powerful tool for communicating directly with your potential customers and customers in a personalized way while delivering valuable content straight to their inboxes.

An effective newsletter increases trust. Trust is necessary to generate conversions and conversations that lead to sales. Oftentimes, we over-complicate things and our messaging can be unclear. Keep in mind that an effective email newsletter campaign needs to be simple. Otherwise, you risk overwhelming your audience and then they start looking for the unsubscribe button.

Here are 5 tips to create a more effective email newsletter and increase engagement with your audience:

1. Incorporate your logo at the top of your newsletter or in another noticeable location. The recipients will know exactly who is sending the message and will start to readily recognize your business. This establishes trust with your readers and increases the credibility of your message.

2. Highlight colors that support your company branding. A company’s colors cultivate strong emotional connections with your customers and can help your readers recognize your company, product, and services.

3. Add Images that support your message. Images are a great way to grab a reader’s attention and help break up blocks of text within your newsletter.  

4. Make sure your design looks great on mobile. Incorporate a one-column email design. It looks great on desktop, and won’t compress images on a mobile device. This is extremely important since more than half of emails are opened on mobile devices.

5. Don’t forget a call-to-action. A call-to-action serves as a map that directs your readers to take a certain action. By the time people finish reading your emails, they should know exactly what you want them to do next.

A newsletter can be a valuable and powerful tool. Incorporating these 5 tips will help you create a more effective newsletter while building trust with your readers. The more your audience trusts that you understand their needs, the happier they’ll be to do business with you.

Edmiston Group offers email marketing services to help you reach your target audience. If you would like to learn more, call me at (724)612-0755 to see how we can help. 

About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh-based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.

tools-to-repurpose-your-blog-content

3 Types of Tools to Repurpose Your Blog Content

by BlogEdmiston Group

Now that you have written your blog, you might want some help in repurposing your content. Sometimes, thinking of repurposing your content for distribution can feel a little overwhelming. So where do you start? Have you considered using automation tools? These tools can help you speed up your distribution of content by removing steps in your content marketing process.

Automation tools can also save you time and money by allowing you and members of your team to spend their time concentrating on more important tasks. In turn, your team will be improving their efficiency, increasing revenue for the business while reducing their workload. The more an automation tool can do, the quicker you can promote your blog content. It may sound scary, but it doesn’t have to be that way if you are curious and have the right tools.

There are various types of tools available for repurposing your content into a new format. Here are 4 of them to help:

Images/Graphic/Pictures: There are a variety of simple tools for helping you transform your content into something new and unique. You can repurpose your blogs into images, branded infographics, or a series of images to tell a story. With interactive tools and templates, you can create a template for your specific need. You don’t have to have an art degree for this. Have fun! These tools are designed for anyone to use. Each tool is different but they do deliver similar results. Canva and Adobe Express are two applications that you may want to research further. Canva is a little easier to use if you have never worked with graphics before. Both offer paid and free versions based on your needs and how much flexibility you desire.

Videos: You didn’t think you could be a video producer, did you? Why not transform your blog posts into videos with A.I. According to an article by Chatterblast, did you know that viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in a text? Lumen5 which is a video creation software platform can help you get the job done. By deconstructing your blog onto specific statements or topic points, Lumen5 will use A.I. to create a short video. With the drop and drag feature, the Lumen5 media library gives you easy access to millions of photos, video clips, and audio files, so you can change change images and create the perfect video. Creating videos couldn’t be any easier. Lumen5 offers both paid and free versions to accommodate your budget.

Scheduling Tools: Your time is important! How easy would it be to take a blog and through A.I., have all your social media posts created and posted? Sounds too good to be true! Well, it isn’t.  Instead of spending your time creating and scheduling posts, all you need to do is let Lately do the work for you and you can spend your time interacting  with your audience. Lately uses AI to create your social media content and allows you to schedule all your social media posts at the same time. Lately starts at $39/month and offers a 7 day free trial at this time. Why not try it, save time and utilize the advantages of A.I.?

Repurposing your blog content doesn’t have to be overwhelming. In fact, it can become quite easy by using the right tools.

If you’re not sure which automation tool is right for you and your business, let’s talk. You can email me at [email protected].


About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh-based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.

The Value of Blogging for Your Small Business

by BlogEdmiston Group

Blogging has grown exponentially over the years. What is the value of blogging that is driving so much volume? According to Hubspot, consumers want to learn more about brands from content rather than traditional ads. So, let’s talk about why blogging specifically is so valuable.

Blogging is a medium that gives you control as to what information you share about your business and services. Blogging also allows you to share your thoughts, demonstrate your expertise and express your insights and opinions to engage with your audience on just about any topic you wish to cover. Of course, you’ll want to blog about topics relevant to your business and your audience, but as you can see, you have lots of opportunity for various kinds of content. Blogging doesn’t have to be overly hard, and you don’t have to be perfect when writing it. Remember, “Don’t focus on having a great blog. Focus on producing a blog that’s great for your readers.” – Brian Clark.

Here are 3 ways blogging can add value to your business.

Build Trust

Writing blogs with valuable content will help educate your readers and customers. By educating your audience, the value of your products or services will become more evident, and therefore more desirable. By staying consistent with your messaging and being reliable with your blog content, your audience will learn to trust what you say and see you as an expert and industry leader. In turn, your audience will be more engaged with your products and services, sharing their feedback with their friends and family which will help increase brand awareness.

Residual Content

Now you see it, now you don’t! When you write a blog, that blog will be distributed on the internet for all to see. The content doesn’t just disappear once you write it. Overtime, your content will continue to be seen by new viewers. This content, when not time sensitive, is often referred to as evergreen content. Evergreen content will be available to all your readers on the web with search traffic growing continuously over time. The value is that your content will be fresh to the new readers searching for this content even though the content was written long before. This will help drive traffic to your website and help attract potential new readers and customers. The more frequently your blog, the more power behind exponential growth.

Lead generation

Leads are extremely important to the success and growth of your business. Are you struggling to get qualified leads for your products or services? Blogging may be just the answer you are looking for! One tool to incorporate into your blog is a lead magnet. A lead magnet is a term for a free item or service that is given away for the purpose of gathering contact details such as their  email, address, zip code, and other details in exchange for something of value you’re providing. If the reader is willing to exchange their information for your free item or service, there is a good chance the reader will convert and buy your products or services. 

Blogging is a very valuable and powerful tool. If you want to incorporate blogging in your marketing strategy but are not sure how to get started, send me an email to discuss your next steps.


About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh-based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.

Why Taking A Vacation from Work is So Important!

by BlogEdmiston Group

Are you having a stressful day? If so, take a moment and think about a place you enjoy… perhaps it’s at the beach with your toes in the sand and the rhythmic sound of the rolling waves. Perhaps, it’s at a cabin deep in the woods with just the sound of mother nature. Ahhhh, sounds great doesn’t it? Now back to reality. Let’s talk about why vacations are so important. 

According to this Inc. article by Ted Callahan, “small business owners work at least 50 hours per week, according to a recent poll — far more than the national average of 33.8 hours per week reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

Working those kinds of hours will take its toll on your health, your relationships and your business. And this is why it is truly important that you take the time to take a vacation. Don’t hold off on scheduling your next vacation. Go ahead and schedule it today.

Here are 3 steps to focus on while away:

1. Focus on Your Well-Being

Well-being encompasses so many things, so let’s focus on your body first. Working excessively puts an enormous amount of stress on your body which could cause health problems over time. Your body needs to relax, unwind, and unstress, so it can recover and feel energized again. Let your body do just that. Relax and unwind.

2. Spend Time With Your Family, Friends, or Loved Ones

How often, when you get home after a long day of work, sit down with your family or loved ones to eat, you receive a phone call, text or email? This is much too common in the business world today and is a distraction to your personal life. When you take a vacation, turn your cell phone off or only check it during certain hours that you and your loved ones agree upon. Remember, this is personal time. It is a time to reconnect, rebond, and just be you. Have fun and enjoy this uninterrupted time. Perhaps this time will even make you appreciate why you have been working so hard. 

3. New Perspectives, New Directions

Let’s face it, most business owners are afraid to leave their business unattended. If you are fortunate enough to have someone stepping in to fill your role, this affords you the opportunity to see them shine. If you don’t have someone to step in, consider hiring a virtual assistant or temporary employee to attend to the urgent daily needs in your absence, only reaching out to you for true emergencies. Knowing that your business communications are covered will help take the day-to-day operating decisions off of your mind so you can be open to new ideas, new perspectives and perhaps even a new direction for your business. How excited would you be to just let your mind be open to any and/or all possibilities?

Taking a vacation isn’t meant to be stressful. It is a chance for you to refresh your mind and body, regroup with your family or loved ones, and energize your business with fresh thoughts and ideas. The less you think about work, the more benefits your vacation will bring!

About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh-based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.

Brand Awareness: How to Know If You’re Being Seen by Your Audience?

by BlogEdmiston Group

How do you know if your brand is actually being seen? Brand awareness represents how well an audience base recognizes a brand or a product. Once a consumer is aware of a brand, they start to recognize it without assistance, set out to make a purchase, begin to prefer it over other similar brands, and establish a loyalty that spurs other purchases and also inspires recommendations to family and friends. This awareness is instrumental in your business success!

So how do you know if your brand is being seen by your audience? There are a variety of ways in which to measure if your brand is being seen. Here are a few:

1. Social Media Metrics

Your social media following gives you a sense of how broad your reach is and how many people are familiar with your brand.  Your metrics also keep you aware of your general social profile and brand health. Every social media platform has its own native analytics for you to dive into.

Engagement is a measure of how people are resonating and interacting with your social media content. It is important to know whether people are actively reading your content or rather watching it slip by in their feeds. Keep in mind that without engagement, social media is just media!

Social Media Metrics can tell you whether a product or service is meeting your customer’s requirements or whether it needs to be improved. The story is the numbers, but you have to know how to analyze them. If you’re new to measuring your social media metrics, learn more in this article 11 Top Social Media Metrics to Track in 2022 by Rock Content Writer. 

2. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool offered by Google to help you analyze your website traffic. It provides you with important information, numbers, and statistics to maximize your site’s performance and obtain important information about your audience, visitor behavior, what potential customers are looking for and more. 

Simply put, Google Analytics puts several lines of tracking code into the code of your website. The code records various activities of your users when they visit your website, along with the attributes (such as age, gender, and interests) of those users. This information can be incorporated into reports within Google Analytics to accomplish things such as evaluating the performance of your marketing campaigns.

You’ll also know which pages are performing the best and whether or not readers are returning, staying on your site or leaving after a quick glance. Want to learn more? Here’s a Getting Started Video by Google.

3. Trade Shows/Conferences

Exhibiting at industry events is a great way to generate brand awareness. Taking a stand at an event gives you a way to interact with industry contacts on a personal level.  There are usually advertising and sponsorship opportunities to help build a stronger awareness for your brand and solidify your products or services. 

A good example of knowing that your brand is being seen could be how many people approached you and introduced themselves to you at your booth and say, “Hey, I’m so and so and I follow your company on Social Media” or “Hey, I would love to connect for a chat”. This is a great indicator that your brand is being seen. Take these opportunities to highlight your brand further and create even more excitement so that they would purchase your product or service.

Brand awareness is a powerful concept that can have a major impact on your marketing efforts, audience perception, and revenue. If you take the time to use the right tools, you’ll find yourself with a loyal audience that recognizes your brand, chooses your products time and time again, and recommends your business to their friends and family.

About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh-based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.

march-madness

March Madness: Your Business is Your Game!

by BlogEdmiston Group
march-madness

There is a buzz in the air, and it’s called March Madness. For many people, March Madness is defined as the NCAA College Basketball Tournament. Each team participating in this tournament has built strategies that they hope will help them succeed… and give them an opportunity to win. So, what can we learn from watching these teams in this tournament to help us with our business?

What makes a winning team? The winning team needs to have the right strategies. Strategies that are aligned with the team’s goals, skills and team members. The winning team also needs to be flexible. They need to be able to pivot and adapt to the changing game.

Think of your business as a game. How can you adapt your strategies and bring flexibility to your business game for long-term success and impact?

Changing Your Marketing and Business Strategies

Not all marketing and business strategies will achieve the outcome you desire. Therefore, it is important to reevaluate and change them as the business environment changes, your customer expectations change, and the economy shifts. It’s okay to shake things up. Just like in the NCAA Basketball Tournament, making adjustments is the key to winning. What adjustments can you make to your business to increase your success?

Start by evaluating these key areas to ensure your marketing efforts stay aligned with your business strategy.

  • Research marketing trends. Has it been a while since you’ve taken a look at trends in your industry and what’s working best for marketing? If you want to stay relevant, it’s important to stay up to date in what’s happening in the current environment.
  • Invest in social media. A strong social presence is essential for most all businesses. Has your target audience shifted where they spend their time? If so, it’s time for you to pivot and shift where you invest in your presence.
  • Refresh your website. It’s more important than ever to have a crisp website that is very mobile friendly. Just like March Madness, customers expect a fast game. If your site is slow or outdated, you’re missing out on business.

Bring Flexibility and Adaptability to Your Business Game

In the tournament, each team is pivoting and adapting to the specific moment during the game. The business plan you are implementing is the foundation of your business. It too, will need to be flexible to react to the changes and developments in the ever-changing environment and landscape surrounding your business. It is necessary to adapt to this changing landscape including changes in your client’s needs, expectations, and/or market conditions.

Consider these three areas to bring flexibility to your business.

  • Create new products and services. Would your business benefit from adding a new product or service? If so, what do your customers need right now?
  • Make improvements to existing products and services. Maybe you have a great product or service, but the maturity and/or expectations of your customers has shifted. How can you take an existing product and make it more desirable to your audience?
  • Market Segment: Would your business benefit from expanding into a new market segment? You could be missing key opportunities by not shifting your business to meet changing needs.

We can learn so much from March Madness. By running your business as a game, executing your business strategies, and pivoting when need be, you can achieve much success.

About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh-based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.

tiktok-marketing

TikTok and Your Small Business

by BlogEdmiston Group
tiktok-marketing

In the past couple of years, social media has become an essential avenue for promoting one’s business. While services from Facebook to LinkedIn can be useful in growing your business, a newer tool to tap into is TikTok. With over a billion users across the globe, this video-based social media app has already allowed countless small business owners to greatly increase their brand awareness and grow their customer base.

Be Attractive and Consistent

With visual apps like TikTok, it is important to create attractive content. Because TikTok’s user base has also grown so large in recent years, it is also important to regularly create content. Frequently posting gives you a greater chance for large exposure. But, don’t overdo it. While the app has recently expanded time constraints on videos, sometimes a burst of short videos with appeals visuals and audio will be most effective!

TikTok offers users various tools to create engaging, eye-catching content. You can choose to include emojis, stickers, trending audios or filters in order to enhance your videos, and gain attention. Be creative. You can craft your own marketing concepts on this platform, as well as work within trending concepts.

Working With Trends

The TikTok platform features a “For You” page, which tailors videos shown to each individual user based on their preferences and viewing behaviors. Similar to hashtags in Instagram, there are predominant trends that take off across the platform. By monitoring trends and hashtags, your business can tap into strategies for expansion to have your content display on users’ “For You” pages. Exploring this page yourself will allow you to find and understand trending content and see where your business can fit in. Tapping into these trends can also be very cost-effective, as creating this content does not require much of a budget or production time.

Business Tools

In addition to gaining viewership from following “For You” page trends, TikTok also offers content creators editing and advertising tools perfect for small businesses. For instance, TikTok offers advertising in the form of infeed native content, brand takeovers, hashtag challenges, and branded lenses. Many of these features are additionally convenient in that they allow direct website links and downloads. Utilizing TikTok’s targeting features will allow you to capture your desired audience and potentially greatly increase your sales, regardless of your product or service.

While working with trends and hashtags is important, you should also remember to be authentic. Allow TikTok viewers to get to know the story of your small business. Rather than simply trying to force your business into existing memes that don’t fit your brand, get to know the platform and its users before deciding what niche to try breaking into. When done right, TikTok will allow you to not only raise awareness of your small business and increase your sales but also really engage with your audience.

About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh-based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.

Public Relations and Your Business

by BlogEdmiston Group

Building and maintaining a relationship with customers is essential for every business. To benefit your business and get the word out about certain products being offered, you may often utilize advertising. While both advertising and public relations are valuable, in the small business world, it can be more important to invest in public relations (PR).

Advertising vs Public Relations

Though the goal of both advertising and public relations is to drive attention to your business, the key difference between these two is that in advertising, businesses must pay for advertising space, such as online banners or billboards. In the case of public relations, results are earned by way of pitching to the media. The two also differ in target audience, objectives, control, strategy, and credibility.

While advertising focuses primarily on potential customers, the focus of public relations is to reach a wider audience that can be internal and external and include employees, customers, investors, and influencers. Advertisements are also often aimed to promote a single product, while PR can cultivate larger brand awareness. On the other hand, businesses can have more control over advertisements, as success largely depends on what you spend. In comparison, PR means less control, as the media will influence how your information is presented. However, advertising has mainly short-term goals, while public relations is geared toward the bigger picture. Consumers are also generally more skeptical of advertisements, as they know information comes from whomever is paying. PR is more likely to be trusted, as information comes from the media, a trusted third party.

Why is PR Important for Small Businesses?

Brand awareness is important for the success of any small business. Being smart with your marketing and considering the most cost-effective choice is essential to maintain your success. Public relations offers you that cost-effective strategy, as advertising can quickly become pricey. In comparison, an initial investment in public relations through press releases can grow in value over time!

Public relations is also essential for effectively growing your client base and brand awareness. By aiming at a broader audience and building connections with those inside and outside your industry through PR, your small business has a greater potential to grow in success. This larger awareness of your business also helps cultivate your reputation, which can lead current customers to trust your business and encourage others to patronize you, too!

How to Create a PR Pitch

When crafting a public relations pitch, it is first essential to consider who to send your pitch to. Finding the appropriate reporter can be the difference between a high and low level of success. Rather than pitching to several contacts, invest your time in researching outlets or contacts that best fit your information. You may also consider sending it to a paid wire service for added exposure.

You message should be clear and concise by the time you make your pitch. Spend time crafting an angle that would hook not only the reporters you’re pitching to, but also their readership. Making the reporter’s job easier, sometimes by also offering a complete press kit or additional information post-pitch, will benefit you and can help drive the story.

Another strategy in creating a PR pitch is by thinking long-term about reporters. By first introducing yourself and building relationships, you can identify yourself as a future resource and increase your chance of success. You can use this later when considering who best to send a pitch to, or when selling to each reporter individually to give them a reason to develop your pitch into an article.

About the author: Autumn Edmiston is the CEO and owner of the Edmiston Group. The Edmiston Group is a multifaceted Pittsburgh-based marketing consulting firm providing senior-level marketing management services to businesses and non-profit organizations on a short or long-term basis. Core areas of service are business development strategies, website creation and management, social media management, marketing, strategic planning, and public relations. The Edmiston Group has consistently delivered and implemented real-world, proven business marketing ideas and strategies for business.